


shift

by StonnButch



Category: Red Dwarf (UK TV)
Genre: F/F, Unresolved Romantic Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-24
Updated: 2020-09-24
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:35:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26626069
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StonnButch/pseuds/StonnButch
Summary: Arlene delights in tormenting Lister, it's part of their game. Until Deb pushes back with a little too much force.
Relationships: Deb Lister/Arlene Rimmer
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	shift

**Author's Note:**

> this idea wouldn't leave me alone until i spat it out so here we are. i hope it makes sense to you as much as it does to me. also this is not beta-ed. we die like men.
> 
> i also have a very gay deblene playlist that ive been listening to while writing this! mayhaps u should check it out: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1HPHdCqfxJgS4NeIu0hAFr?si=ricyJabnTJ66q4H9y5buQA

“Have you fixed the machine on C deck yet?”

Lister keeps staring at the clock. In her defense, it’s right across where she’s sitting, next to the open mouth of a dispensing machine. It’s supposed to give out tea and sandwiches, but since this morning it’s been handing out nothing but green jelly. So Lister is sitting on the ground, fiddling with the guts of the machine, improvising as she goes. A portion of her mind is preoccupied with shore leave, which starts the minute her shift ends. Twenty–no, nineteen minutes left until some well deserved rest and relaxation.

Rimmer repeats her question, louder this time. She has to hold her clipboard and assert what little authority she’s managed to cultivate in all twelve years she’s given to Red Dwarf. Lister thinks if she went and fixed the coffee machine instead of idling around like a git, they’d both be able to catch the early shuttle to Titan. Unfortunately, Rimmer’s ego is a force to be reckoned with. She raises her eyes from whatever’s on her clipboard back to Lister with irritation, expectation. Lister exhales and drops the wrench (with a bit too much force, realizing so when the sound echoed against the wall), and looks at her right back. She knows Rimmer is up to something, it lines up with all the antics Lister’s unbearably familiar with; the only issue is that she doesn’t know what her goal is. Make her miss the shuttle? Hard to imagine considering they would both be stuck with each other with nowhere else to go. Lister would avoid the quarters like the plague but why even think about that when she’s not going to let some stuck-up gimp ruin her plans?

“You and I both know it’s a little too late to run over to C deck when I have a shuttle to catch in,” she checks the clock one more time, “Sixteen minutes.”

“Then it’ll simply have to put you on report,” Rimmer scribbles something down, shrugging apologetically but Lister reads her too embarrassingly well by now to know it’s all a farce. She knows she relishes any and all opportunities to put anyone on report. 

“I’ll worry about that when I get back.”

For a split second Rimmer’s cool and aloof expression is wrinkled into one of confusion and anger. It bounces right back but the tension travels all the way to her right hand, where she grips the pen it holds. Lister has already walked out of the door and into the hallway, booking it to their quarters without a word.

“I can only hope that you will,” Rimmer persists, speed walking behind her. So much for efficiency and C deck. “What if someone —an officer— wanted a proper meal? The captain?”

“Half the crew’s already gone, you goit.”

Lister hurriedly enters their bunkroom and Rimmer, of course, follows within seconds. Lister starts throwing clothes, belongings into an old duffel bag that she fishes out of the depths of her closet. She’s completely tuned her roommate out, or at least to the best of her ability. Lightly shoving Rimmer out of her way, she clambers up to her bed, searching for whatever the hell was lying within her messy sheets. She probably hadn’t made them in weeks, at least. Rimmer’s voice breaks her inner thoughts. If she had any talent, it would be being the most insufferable person Lister has ever had the ‘privilege’ to know.

“Well?”

“Well, what?” Lister snaps back, turning her head back for an instant to face her. 

“You’re really never going to change are you. Always skiving off duties,” Rimmer shakes her head, almost in amused disbelief. 

Lister searches around, back once again facing Rimmer. 

“What are you even going to do on Titan anyway? Nothing different from what you already do here, I’d imagine.”

Her temper rises to her temple and, in one swift move, Lister faces Rimmer and swings her right arm out, catching her tie at the top. Gripping it, she pulls her closer, leaving only a few inches between their faces. Other than a hitched breath, Rimmer is eerily silent; she instinctively pulls her head back just slightly but not as much as she’s normally capable, as if to invite the uninvited intimacy. Her shoulders and arms look stiff, hands curled, unsure if they’re about to be balled into fists or not.

Lister immediately regrets her impulsive behavior but remains stone-faced. Rimmer had been drilling into her head for the whole day, week, however many months she had been stranded there. She only wanted to give her a piece of her mind but in the moment, her mind stops in its tracks. Her gaze keeps drifting between Rimmer’s eyes, so open and deep, and she notices the rosy flush stain her pale face. Rimmer, on the other hand, had immediately torn her eyes away but slowly allows it to linger back up; from the floor to Lister’s shoulders, to—without meaning to—her lips and finally sharing her gaze. 

Lister’s tight grasp doesn’t falter but her breath does, falling heavier like something hitting against her lungs. A warmth burns inside her at the proximity, feeling less and less like pure hate and more like something she’d most likely choke on saying. Her mind captures a photograph of how pink Rimmer’s lips look upon closer inspection, something she never would’ve expected from the one person she actively chooses to spend all her time away from.

“Get off my back,” is all she can say, just above a whisper, her breath barely floats against Rimmer’s cheek. She takes one last glance at her state, silent and frozen, maybe even pliable — all sense of authority undone within moments. She feels like she saw something she wasn’t supposed to, a raw facet hidden away under all those meticulous layers Rimmer formulated over the years. Rimmer is dead silent, completely unable to cough out even a snide remark. A little too dramatically, Lister lets go and Rimmer stumbles back, nearly falling. Something in Lister wishes to see her collapse as she watches her hand release Rimmer’s tie. 

Lister pulls a small grey paper, the culprit lost under waves of her duvet, and hops off her bed. Rummaging through her bag, she mentally checks a list as she goes, as if none of that had happened, sensing how hot her face feels. Her back faces Rimmer once more. Rimmer’s breath takes a few minutes more to even out, feet locked to the concrete floor; she straightens out her tie but there’s a slight wrinkle where Lister’s nail pressed into the fabric. It left a slight mark, but of course, it’ll go away. Rimmer tries to shake the feeling away, even if Lister was just staring right into whatever excuse of a soul she has, but all she does is shudder. Lister continues to avoid facing Rimmer, suddenly remembers the time-sensitivity of her ticket, and her head shoots upwards. She gathers all her belongings and before she sprints out into the corridor, she turns back to face Rimmer, who is still basking in the aftermath. 

“See ya,” Lister says as she slings the strap of her bag over her shoulder. Too cold. “Smeghead,” she adds, just for good measure.

“Yeah.”

Lister looks at Rimmer for a moment longer, taking in this new image of her that she’s managed to pry out of her and once she’s satisfied, turns on her heel and heads towards the cargo bay. She makes it with six minutes to spare.

///

Rimmer doesn’t move from where she’s standing, not immediately. Lister is no longer in the room, let alone the ship, but the leftover tension cages Rimmer. Something has sewed her soles to the ceiling of the floor below. In time, the agitation in her chest subdues and the stitches on her boots come loose. Her knees have just enough strength to let her sit on the mattress, letting all her weight onto the bed. Her mind is simultaneously going over the last fifteen minutes while also attempting to stash it where all the Bad Memories and Thoughts go. If she doesn’t remember it, it didn’t really happen, she soothes herself but her face is still warm. 

Against her wishes, her mind conjures images, specifically of Lister, how soft her brown skin looked even under the harsh lights of their quarters. She remembers the way Lister’s collarbone peeked out from her shirt, the panic that suspended itself in her throat when she realized she was staring for a split second too long. Her own eyes stopped dead on her lips when all she meant to do was to look back at her. She kicks herself for looking at all. 

All she wanted was to get Lister to miss her shuttle accidentally on purpose. Intentionally without meaning to. And besides, it really wouldn’t make any difference to her if she got wasted onboard or on some planet. Not like it matters when the sky and the ground merge molecules, so to speak, and when Lister drank, she drank. 

So maybe she used that machine on C deck excuse as exactly what it is: an excuse. Throughout their shift, Lister’s constant checking of the clock never got lost under Rimmer’s radar; she acted on a whim and had to find something to hinder Lister. It wasn’t that she wanted to spend time with her, practically alone in an emptier ship, but just that, as leader of Z shift, her intuition as a future-rear-admiral-to-be told her that Lister had to stay behind. To make up for tasks she must have avoided (although the weekly reports stated quite clearly that she was on top of everything.) No need to pick that apart, this was just part of the first few steps of Rimmer’s infamous ziggurat to captaincy. 

Unconsciously, a hand goes up to her face, caressing the cheek that felt Lister’s breath. Her fingers fruitlessly search for that same sensation that has long since gone. The tight feeling around her neck has loosened but the weight is still there. Her mind rolls the events once more but this time, as Lister still hangs on to the tie, she hops off the bunk. Lister’s free hand snakes up to the back of Rimmer’s neck, supporting it gently as she dips her back and their lips finally sever the empty space. Feeling even warmer, Rimmer’s hands instinctively reach out for Lister’s waist, itching to travel further up.

Rimmer shakes her head, dissolving the daydream. That’s absolutely not what happened nor where either of them wanted it to go. She reassured herself; Lister disrespected her superior, and furthered that with an amateur intimidation tactic. She stands up, a little too suddenly, immediately getting hit with a wave of dizziness. She clumsily stumbles to their restroom, embarrassment digging deeper into her as she notices her uneven breathing and burning sensation across her face and ears. 

She concludes that she’s gone irreparably insane. Space crazy, something in the same vein. Lister’s confrontation wasn’t just that but a ploy to manipulate her thinking, opening a window for a potential weakness. Rimmer thanks her lucky stars and abusive parents because she refuses to fall prey; she’s been taught how to tolerate this since birth. 

She turns the tap in the sink and washes the fever off her face. The coldness of the water shocks her. If her mind won’t comply, she’ll drag it out by physical means. She splashes her face fervently, leaving a small wet trail down her shirt, so much so that she damn near waterboards herself.

///

Lister sits in between Petersen and Chen. She doesn’t mention what happened with Rimmer. She doesn’t even mention Rimmer. In any other circumstance, any and all events involving her hellish roommate is always the first thing out of her mouth but this time she keeps it to herself. In time (hopefully by tonight), she’ll forget it ever happened. They’ll move on with their lives and hopefully go back to their cat-and-mouse antics without any hesitation. 

Her friends are excitedly chatting, no doubt about their plans; a possible pub crawl, wondering if they’ll get with anyone, something about an android brothel. Lister fakes enthusiasm as she listens but part of her mind lags behind, still stuck back behind the walls of their quarters. She hates to think about it but she is curious about how Rimmer is dealing with this, the aftermath. Not for her well-being or anything, but just how someone with such a difficult personality would come out of that. Did she straighten out her uniform and head straight to C deck herself? Yell at one of the skutters? Most likely, she was sulking around by now. She felt a pang in her chest, frustration at being unable to tear her mind away from her. In the end Rimmer got what she wanted; more or less.

She’d been looking forward to today for a while, she was excited, ready to take it all on headfirst; away from the ship, the menial tasks and obviously her. Yet her body 

It was jarring just how vast the contrast was between this Rimmer she’d come to know and memorize and the Rimmer she unraveled not even a half hour ago. 

“Chen to Lister, do you copy?” Chen waves a hand in front of Lister’s face, who hadn’t realized she completely zoned out. 

“It’s been a long day, let me relax,” Lister gives her a friendly punch to the arm. She rests her head back on her seat and closes her eyes. She wonders if Rimmer's lips are as soft as they are pink.

“It’s always a long day when you’re stuck with Rimmer,” Petersen chimes in. The others laugh. “She give you much trouble?”

“Man, the last thing I wanna do is talk about her.”

Heat rekindling on Lister’s face, she exhales with exasperation. Under the noise of the others’ chattering, she drifts off into a light sleep, lasting for the rest of the ride.


End file.
